Gordon Parks Quotes

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?' In my case, I suppose it's not just a cliche.

So once you hit like that place, where everything is stripped from you, everything is taken from you, you really discover who you really are. I discovered that I'm a real hero, that I can deal with that situation, that I can rise up to the challenge.

You find strength in your moments of weakness.

No matter where we live on the planet or how difficult our situation seems to be, we have the ability to overcome and transcend our circumstances.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I really believe that.

Sometimes to go forward you've got to go to the depths of your own personal despair and claw yourself back. From that point, no matter what happens, you know you can do it.

If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.

'That which does not kill me makes me stronger' is not a law of the universe. What it can be, if we so choose, is a resolution.

It always remains true that if we had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us.

Life isn't fair. It's true, and you still have to deal with it. Whining about it rarely levels the playing field, but learning to rise above it is the ultimate reward.

The best people I know have had a lot of obstacles to overcome.

Everything's the same; I'm living with cancer and it's not going to stop me. But until you really test yourself and challenge yourself, I don't think you quite know.

You struggle with your demons and you conquer them.

From a person standpoint, the old expression of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger is somewhat true.

Real pain hurts so bad. When you've gone through something and you've overcome it, you're able to heal other people.

The only advice you can give is, 'Don't let the bad stuff keep you down.'

The human spirit and what it can go through... that's pretty inspiring.

Overcoming adversity not only makes you stronger, it makes you more hopeful.

Just know that all the pain that I've been through, it made me strong.

The struggles don't define you. It's how you handle them that determines who you are.

The stuff I've seen and lived and survived. Gun to my head, cops coming to your house. I had the confidence of telling myself that I'm going to make it. Everything I've been through, I could've had a mental breakdown, but I kept it together. If I didn't have that confidence I wouldn't have made it. That confidence has nothing to do with basketball.

I faced a certain amount of violence. It taught me that I had to learn to protect myself - and it made me stronger. It could have made me step backwards with my self-discovery. Instead, it pushed me further.

You will find that you survive humiliation. And that's an experience of incalculable value.

Many a man has risen to eminence under the powerful reaction of his mind in fierce counter-agency to the scorn of the unworthy, daily evoked by his personal defects, who with a handsome person would have sunk into the luxury of a careless life under the tranquillizing smiles of continual admiration.